Creating Again!

Whew and am I glad...finally got enough organised to be able to sit down and DO something. 
The spinning wheel is in the shop and has currently 3/4 bobbin of Tasmanian Superfine spun....wool on knitting needles making a square for fulling for a needle fleted bag...the little loom set up ready to warp tonight for a new wrap....and the big loom under threat for a sample using Wendy Koolhof's hand dyed laceweight silk and Mahdi's embellishing threads!
Whew!

THEY'RE FINISHED

Well, I've been rabbiting on about these for a few weeks now and they are finally finished!

The latest superfine Tasmanian merino handwoven scarves are finally off the looms, finished, labeled and packaged and ready to go to their new owners! 

They are destined as gifts for attendees at a wedding in Hobart this Saturday - and two will be off to the U.S!  I'm SO pleased with the new packaging.  It makes the special ones look "specialler" don't you think?

One is millspun, one millspun warp and handspun weft and two handspun both ways woven on an Ashford Knitters loom 50 cm and usingTasmanian Merino label superfine merino tops (handspun to medium singles) and the same  millspun 2/16s.   Lovely !!!

MAKING STUFF

Here are my new cards from yesterday, all labeled, packaged up and ready to go to the new shop!

Also, here are some new superfine Tasmanian merino scarves wot I have just finsihed for an order.  One more to go so I had better start warping !!!

 

Three Superfine Merino handwoven Scarves



Closeup of one on right

These scarves were all woven on my little Ashford Knitters Loom with a 12.5 dpi heddle and the gorgeous 19.5 micron superfine merino fibre.

The left one is using our own handspun in an open weave which was then fulled in the washing machine to a firm fabric.

The middle one is mill-spun superfine warp with the weaving a window pane pattern variation using alternating millspun and handspun.

The right hand one is all mill-spun and there's a closeup of the balanced weave at right.  The one that I have still to do will be a leno using the superfine handspun.


MORE PICCIES

My new (secondhand) 80 cm Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom !!!!!

Thanks to Belinda in the ACT for packing it up so beautifully and sending over for me!!

PS Thanks for the kind wishes y'all - I'm still sick  :(

Jellywares on Marshall

Well what a lovely surprise I had last week !  On chugging in (the little Toyota Ute) to the (almost) outback town of Cobar in western NSW during SO and mine's Big Trip 2010, I found the delightful Josie presiding over her shop counter, crochet hook in hand.     Jellywares on Marshall has a welcoming and delightful ambience specialising in all things home-made, home-grown and wholesome.  Lovely displays and all sorts of tempting things to buy! There is a good selection of yarns, books and accessories; hand crafted goods created by Jodie as well as fresh eggs, preserves and pickles! Handspun yarn by Jodie and the ladies of the town can also be found and gorgeous sewn dresses for us and the children all made special with Jodie's unique touches!  She does classes as well, has an online store, is a mum to two gorgeous little ones and works with her husband on their sheep station 70 kms up the road - don't know how she fits it all in.

Goodies by the dozen!



Shopfront on Marshall St Cobar



Jodie and one of her lovely daughters in the shop!

I could not resist and bought some Cascade yarn to bring home for the AKL to play with (lucky loom that it is).  SO is quoted as saying "haven't you got enough wool at home ?"  Yes, but you can always have more, besides this is cotton and alpacca, and this season's colours!!   Check out Jodie's blog here.

Ball, Balls, Balls

Been busy this week spinning and winding balls! There were 8 mill-spun hanks (Meskills, NorthEast Yarns and Jarob Farm) that had to be wound up and several bobbins of mine and Barbara's handspun.  I must admit, although I've been a spinner for more years than I care to remember (must be more than 31 as that's how old my eldest is......and I had black sheep before I had him lol) it's been an intermittently practiced pleasure. Alternating with spinning has been all sorts of other stuff including work, raising kids and gardening together with .....the list goes on. However, just lately, and inspired by Barb's product, I have had the urge to get the wheel out and I have really enjoyed it!  Part of that has been the absolute joy of working with the Tasmanian superfine merino wool tops - this fibre is truly magnificent to spin and I'm looking forward to blending the handspun singles and 2 ply with the mill-spun 2/16s on the loom. I have a couple of orders for superfine scarves and have decided on this approach.   So, the ball winder has been busy.......




Lots of balls



Clarence Point Alpaca (Rusty) 2 ply handspun

Meskills 8 ply mill-spun Corriedale and
Tassie Superfine Merino handspun single on right

Finn X dyed in the fleece 2 ply handspun

Finn X Dyed in the fleece selection of handspun sinlges with the 2 ply on left. 
These are all from the same fleece that I got from Lesley Rorke at Bendigo this year

Hand dyed silk fibre spun single (also from 2010 Bendigo)

Tas Superfine Merino handpsun singles in two textures

Gorgeous Tasmanian Superfine Merino Wool Tops



100g Pack Tas Superfine Merino


I'm very excited to be now able to offer for sale 100g packs of Tasmanian Superfine Merino wool tops.  From the Japanese Mill that processes this fibre which is sourced exclusively from Tasmanian growers, the tops have been scoured, carded and combed and are ready to spin, felt or use for other crafty pursuits.

Natrual, lustrous, creamy white, the 19.5 micron average superfine fibre just about jumps all by itself onto the bobbin!

Go to my madeit or etsy shops and you'll be able to purchase some for yourself!

Barb and I have just started spinning this wonderful stuff and the spun yarn will be woven on the Ashford Knitters Loom for the autumn 2011 range of handmadebyrowena scarves, wraps, jackets and other outerwear, plus our NEW RANGE of baby products coming soon.  We are just so excited to be able to share it with you !!

Allwrappedup again!

I was just so so pleased to be able to make my donation to St Giles Launceston based on my sales for the two days just gone of Niche allwrappedup for August 2010.  I don't have much disposable - us crafts people work hard and profit little in $$s  (but lots in other benefits) - so it's a great way to share with the kids at St Giles who really need all the love and assistance we as a community can give them!  The staff are singularly magnificent in their care.  I know this from personal experience as two family members have benefited from their help!

So, how did we go ?  Well once again it was an absolute pleasure to be surrounded by such fantastic, happy and friendly designer makers from Tasmania.  We had a great time and apart from a few relatively minor hiccups out of most every one's control, everything went really well.  Saturday especially was busy and throngs filled the space to near capacity more than a couple of times!

To all those who stopped by Rowena to say hello - thanks for making my market stall a happier place and to those who liked my wares enough to purchase, I truly hope you enjoy your scarf for many wears to come!  Thanks for all the encouraging comments, the new ideas and the reinforcement of what I am already doing.  I was also encouraged by the interest in the new Superfine Tasmanian Merino Lambs wool scarves and in the Conara range made from the lustrous Wanstead Park English Leicester yarn!   It seems also that we can sell balls of Barb's lovely handspun - there was much interest.  Perhaps, if I can get guaranteed supply, I may be able to find time to hand dye and ballup the superfine and sell in small lots - wouldn't that be a pip (to quote Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy).

I must get busy now on my trusty AKL as there are three orders to fill and Jude and Felicity and the girls from Eastside Makers Market have encouraged me to part with the readies for a spot at the next market in Bellerive on Hobart's eastern shore next Sunday 5th September 2010. ....and I really need to update Etsy and MadeIt .

...another Niche all wrapped up!  Thanks Selena and to Zoe who looked after us wonderfully at the Academy Gallery venue!   Do hope those who were at the Boatshed venue had just a great a time!

PS...the jacket sold !  Thanks to Lee's mum for the first try-on - it was so wonderful to see the garment modelled by someone whom it suited!  And to Trish who missed out - I'll barter when I get another made.  To Pat who won the battle, do share won't you !  LOL.  Enjoy!

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS...new page on tab at top of page.  Everyone deserved a spot but thanks to those who were happy for me to take their pic and post to this blog!

It's finally finished (the jacket) !

At last - after months of playing with designs, patterns, newspaper cutouts and such, I have finished the jacket / ruana / vest - whatever it is !  And I'm very pleased too!    Meskill's millspun dark grey corriedale woven on my 50cm Ashford Knitter's Loom (2 pieces), fulled to a firm felt fabric, sewn together (scary for a non-sewer!), hook & eye at closure, beautiful moon button trim (thanks Trace!), stream pressed and woo-hoo there it is.  Yay! 

SoewnEarth's Moon Buttons

Getting ready

Conara in the Darke

 Lots and lots to do....and ran out of black ink in the printer !

I decided to do new labels - sometimes I think I'm more concerned with the marketing than the work itself, but then I remind myself that it's got to look good and that includes good labels!  So I have been playing around with ideas and also working on that "range" concept.  You know, the one that makes you focus on exactly what you are trying to achieve.  I think the labels have helped !!   Rowena now has everyday and hundreds & thousands for commercial wool and synthetics and then conara and pure for the pure wools and the new spun for the handspun and woven!

Here is a lovely silver grey scarf woven from some of the Bendigo Mohair Farm persian lamb and mohair I have had in my stash for positively years!  Barb has had a great time spinning it and the result is gorgeous.  The warp is a (coned) french pure wool with an interesting finish.

And look as this stunning italian Filatura di Crosa Buffo which looks great in an open weave.  I laid it on a kid mohair warp and mixed in some good old Australian Cleakheaton Astra Khan.  The resulting wool and suynthetic mix makes it light and luxurious! This is a fashion statement scarf. 

Some of the 'pure' scarves

The finishing takes longer than it does to make them!  But there they are, all nicely steam pressed, labelled and hanging on the "competed" rack waiting for next Friday morning!    ...or at least about half of them......so I'd better get back to it. 

Launceston, University of Tasmania Academy Gallery, Niche allwrappedup Market for Tasmanian designers and makers.  10am - 4pm Friday 27 and Saturday 28 August 2010.  Supporting St Giles.

The daphne's out

Barbara's spinning

A Beautiful Day for Weaving and Gardening

Confetti Scarf

What a glorious day for weaving - especially when you don't have to go to "the day job" ! I've started working with some of the beautiful yarn I bought back from Bendigo. Here is the Shiloh Silky Wool in shade "Confetti" laid onto a warp of Tasmanian Super Fine Merino Lambs Wool 2/22s. I think the bronson lace variation emphasises the lightness of the yarn and the subtle variations of the hand-painted fibre are not overwhelmed. I'm really pleased with this scarf!

After the recent rain and the endless fogs and  overcast days, it was wonderful to see blue sky and sunshine! Judging by the garden, the depths of winter are not always so bleak. ......

Weeping Flowering Apricot

All my helebores are out and the weeping flowering apricot is a picture - it's wonderful scent welcome in a time when not much else is out.  The daphnes are absolutely loaded too and it won't be long before their heady scent arrives.

Helebores - Tasmanian Winter

Scarf ~ Noro in the Darke

Thought you might like to see the makings of this lovely scarf using my Ashford Knitters Loom (AKL).  I used a weft of Darke Doings superfine millspun Tasmanian merino on a warp of the beautiful Japanese Noro Taiyo in autumn tones. It was woven on the AKL using a 7.5 dpi heddle and the warped length of 2300mm gave a finished length of just over 1800 mm.  Width finished is 170mm.  I used 3/4 ball of the Noro and about 70g of the merino - equivalent to about an 8ply.

This is the Noro Taiyo Yarn - colour No 9


Cotton, Silk, Wool and a tiny bit acrylic.  Yummy !

The warp tied on

.......and  rolled onto the back beam.  I use A3 paper to make sure the warp threads are even and there are no bumps.  Helps stop slipping as well!

Looking sideon with the heddle in the rest position, you can see how the shed opens up.

And so we start to weave.  In this scarf, I used a leno twist pattern.  There are ten shots of plain weave in between each leno sequence.

Close-up of leno twist

The scarf was finished with a simple twisted fringe.

Finished product !  

Woohoo !! Etsy Treasury East Listing

A BIG thank you to Urbandeva who listed my beautiful Sea Mist Wrap on her Etsy Treasury East List !! 
http://www.etsy.com/people/UrbanDeva/favorites

I'm still  coming to grips with the other fascinating aspects of Etsy - wish I had the time to browse more extensively! It's such a wonderful feeling when someone else picks out your stuff and says that it's worthy of mention!

Thanks Urbandeva   :)

Autumn 2010 Catalogue

The catalogue for this new Autumn season is now available : check out the slide show at the top of the page !  If you would like a full catalogue complete with descriptions and more photos, just email me at handmadebyrowena@hotmail.com  and I'll send you one as a pdf file.

See ya !!
Row

Straight off the Loom

A dozen more designs ready for finishing and packaging!  Whew !  Here are a few photos. These are all moahir and wool plus synthetic mixes and are great for accessorising.  Next week I will update Etsy Store with some great new designs for the boys!     Now back to the finsishing bit...washing, pressing, descriptions and labels, photos, package, price and ready to go.   Meanwhile I'm busy dreaming of the next ones...think I'll do some beauthiful Conara scarves using pure Tassie wool.  Just picked up a hank of the Wanstead Park yarn plus some lovely hand-dyed wool from New Norfolk.   Talk to you soon !

Straigh off the Loom

Straight off the Loom

Straight off the loom